The Shadow and the Specialist
by skatoulaki
Summary: Coulson brings in an elusive independent contract agent known only as The Shadow, employed by Tony Stark and sent in by Nick Fury, to interrogate Grant Ward. Contains an original character. (The Shadow is not a Marvel character). Cameo by Tony Stark:)
1. Chapter 1

_Trained by Natasha Romanoff, the Shadow is an "independent contractor" employed by an unknown benefactor who is called in by S.H.I.E.L.D. (and other government agencies) to shadow their black ops specialists in the field when they're on solo missions – The Shadow follows the agents, covering their backs so they can focus on their mission._

They were bringing in The Shadow to interrogate him. Ward sat on the cot in his cell, his eyes closed, remembering the time he was in Fallujah. He'd been sent in to eliminate a high-ranking terrorist and was told they'd be sending the Shadow in to cover him. He remembered the rooftop, the target in his sights and hearing the scrape behind him, knowing (hoping?) that the Shadow, wherever he was, whoever he was, would eliminate the threat behind him, never losing his composure, taking the shot. Mission accomplished, he looked behind him to see two crumpled bodies about three feet away, blood pooling beneath them. He disassembled his rifle, stuffed it into his pack, and stood up, coming face to face with another enemy operative. He blanched, but only for a moment, the man's face suddenly sporting a tiny hole between his eyes; he looked around before walking away as the man's body fell next to the other two.

Yeah, the Shadow was good. The Shadow was someone to be feared. He'd never heard of anyone meeting the guy, but apparently he was going to now. He wondered briefly how Coulson had pulled it off, being able to call in one of the most elusive agents in the history of espionage.

The door opened, a guard came in and shackled his wrists and ankles, led him down the hall to an interrogation room, where his wrists were shackled to a bar on the table, his ankles to chains on the chair, everything bolted to the floor. They weren't taking any chances apparently. Did they really think he was that dangerous? He stared at his wrists on the table, wondered what the hell he was doing here. This isn't how things were supposed to happen. He was never supposed to get caught, he was better than that.

_You're weak_, he heard Garrett say in his head. _You got caught because you're weak. You let your emotions – for Skye, for May, for FitzSimmons – cloud your judgment. You got cocky. THAT'S why you're here._

He shook his head, tried to shake the voice away. It wasn't really a voice; he wasn't crazy, wasn't hearing voices. It was just the same voice that had always been there – first in the guise of Maynard, then Garrett – telling him exactly what he was – weak, worthless, not good enough.

He looked up as the door opened, a look of confusion briefly touching his face, then – as always – he shut it off.

He smirked. "Mikayla?" he glanced at the camera up in the corner of the ceiling. "What are you playing at, Coulson? My sister? Really?"

She sat down across from him. His sister. He hadn't seen her in 15/16 years. What the hell was she doing here? Why would they bring HER here?

"Why are you here?" he asked, his voice gruff, his larynx still damaged.

"They called me," she replied. "They wanted me to come talk to you."

"Why? Do they think you're gonna talk some sense into me?"

She shrugged. "Do YOU think I'm gonna talk some sense into you?"

"How could you?" He chuckled. "You're a librarian in Peoria, for fuck's sake."

She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. "And you're an agent of SHIELD," she said, then glanced down at his hands before leaning back. "In shackles."

He scowled, and spat out another chuckle.

"We all need our cover stories, Grant," she said.

Confusion again. His thoughts whirled in his head. He met her gaze and held it, then shook his head. "Nope," he said simply.

"One in the embassy in Moscow in 2007," she said. "Two in the alley in Dansk in 09. There was South Africa and Peru in 2010. Three on the roof in Fallujah in, what, 2012? And then –"

Ward looked stricken, almost scared. "Not possible," he murmured, barely above a whisper.


	2. Chapter 2

Mik watched him struggling and wondered what was going on in his head. She'd been filled in by Coulson on what had happened to him over the last several years. She'd had no clue. She'd known he worked for SHIELD, she'd known Garrett was his SO, she'd never have thought that either of them would have been turncoats, that they'd been hiding on the inside the whole time.

Of course, there were people all over the place going through identical situations right now. Hydra had managed to infiltrate what was once thought to be the most secure organization on the planet, and not just recently, but right from the very founding of SHIELD. Minds were being blown across the world, former colleagues interrogated much the same way as Ward was now. And everyone was asking the same questions – "How?" "Why?"

Coulson hadn't known when they called her in that she was his sister, and Fury hadn't told her who she'd be interrogating. She'd dropped the name Mikayla Ward when she'd been recruited by Stark, which was actually probably right around the same time Ward was released from juvie on probation.

So when she arrived, when she realized who the Hydra operative was that they wanted her to interrogate, she'd had to tell Coulson. He'd had shaken his head, apologized for wasting her time, telling her there was obviously a conflict. She assured him there wasn't, insisted that Grant's being her brother wasn't an issue, that "family" relationships weren't something that affected her ability to carry out her job. Given the family history that she knew Coulson was aware of, that comment seemed to get through to him.

"Sir," she'd explained. "Fury knows Grant is my brother; I think that's why he sent me. Grant and I – we came from the same Hell, and we were both "rescued" in a way from that Hell. Fortunately for me, the person who rescued me wasn't a narcissistic psychotic nutjob with an aim at worldwide domination. If there is anything even slightly redeemable in that room, I'll find it…and if there isn't, I'll make the appropriate recommendation."

"Which would be—" asked Coulson.

"A bullet to the head" was her reply.

Now, sitting across the table from him, she wondered what the recommendation would turn out to be. She couldn't read anything on his face. He was a blank slate, completely shut off from her. Garrett had played him well, had shaped him into exactly what he was supposed to be – SHIELD specialists were all cut from the same cloth – emotionless, cold, calculated, level-headed, even-tempered – and Grant displayed all of those traits.

* * *

While Mik assessed him, Ward assessed her. Behind his blank face, his mind was swirling with thoughts. How was it even possible that his little sister, the little girl who had been just as much a target for Maynard as he and Sam had been, was sitting here across the table from him and had apparently been an even deeper operative than HE had been over the last several years? And how could HE not have had a clue?

Ward knew that within SHIELD, only Nick Fury had known her identity. Had he known that she was his sister too? And who the Hell did she work for now that Fury was dead? All anyone knew about The Shadow was that he – SHE – was called in by Fury. He'd heard that some agents, when they knew she'd been assigned to them, tried to catch a glimpse of her, but she'd always been elusive. The only evidence she was even shadowing them were the bodies that littered the ground while they were on their missions. She always had their backs, had never failed to protect the agents she was assigned to protect.

"You're a librarian," he murmured again. She stood up and approached him, stood just behind him, and he looked up at her.

"Yeah," she replied, putting a hand on his shoulder. "From Peoria." He felt a sudden sharp pain shoot down his back; he tried to look away from her but found that he couldn't. He didn't know how she was doing it or what she was even doing; her hand still rested on his shoulder and, glancing his eyes downward, he saw that her other hand was just hanging loosely by her side. She leaned down, her hand remaining on his shoulder and he met her gaze. "Do you feel that?" she asked quietly, knowing full well from the pain in his eyes that he could. "If there was ever a time to doubt that I am NOT a librarian – from Peoria – this is that time." She removed her hand from his shoulder and stood. The pain was gone, but its memory lingered in his mind. He'd heard of people who could do such things, inflict intense pain by applying a fingertip to a pressure point, but he'd thought it was folklore.

She walked to the door, then turned and leaned against it, looking at him thoughtfully. "I've shadowed a lot of agents," she said. "SHIELD, CIA, MI6…you name an agency, I've shadowed their agents. Some, when they learn the Shadow's assigned to them – they turn into bumbling idiots and it makes my job a living Hell. It's like 'Oh cool, the Shadow's got my 6, I can relax now.' Not you, though. You were good at your job. You made my job easy. And when I shadowed you, even though you had no clue I was there, it was like we were a team." She smiled. "Brother and sister against the world? My little secret, right?" The smile left her face. "Had I known that all along, the entire time I was keeping your ass safe, you were just another piece of scum lying in wait for the order to 'come out of the shadows and into the light,' I'd have put a bullet between your eyes."

"So much for keeping emotions in check, right?" he said, smirking.


	3. Chapter 3

_At least he's talking_, Mik thought. She was getting somewhere, even if he didn't realize it.

"If I shut out emotions," she said, "I wouldn't have been able to do my job."

"Garrett said emotions are—"

"I don't want to hear about Garrett. Garrett's dead." She sat across from him again. "I know all I want to know about Garrett. I want to hear about you."

"Garrett was in charge—"

"I said I don't want to hear about Garrett. What about you, Grant?"

"I'm nobody." And there it was.

Mik stood and walked to the door. Before leaving, she glanced back over her shoulder at him and said simply "Nobody's nobody."

* * *

In the briefing room, Mik got a bottle of water from the fridge and ran a hand through her hair, leaning against the counter and closing her eyes, trying to figure out what her next step should be.

"I know you have another agenda here," said a voice behind her, and she turned to see Skye, anger flashing in her eyes. "Yeah, that's right. Maybe you have Coulson convinced that you're here to work, but I know you're here to do something else."

"What am I here to do?"

Skye's face changed to an expression of faux pain. "You're here to save your big brother." She rolled her eyes.

Mik shrugged. "I'm here to get information. If I save him in the process, so what?"

"So what?!" Anger flashed across Skye's face again. "He's a lying Nazi pig and a murderer! He's not worth saving!"

"Do you really believe that?" Mik reached toward her knapsack on the counter and started rummaging through it.

"How can you ask that? He is a cold-blooded killer who works for a Nazi organization! He has murdered people – GOOD people."

"He was doing his job," said Mik, walking toward Skye, a handful of file folders in her arms. "You were saved, weren't you? What makes him less worthy of being saved than you?"

"I haven't killed anyone!" Skye looked at her incredulously.

Mik tossed a folder that landed on the table in front of Skye.

"Meg Clancy," she said as Skye flipped the folder open to see a photo of a young blonde in her mid-30s. "CIA. She was killed by a sniper bullet in Dubai two years ago."

She tossed another folder to Skye.

"Jon Harnett and Sal Weinberg. MI6. They were killed in a car bombing in Brazil a year and a half ago."

She tossed another folder.

"Elbridge Stanton. SHIELD. He was killed execution-style in South Africa in 2011."

She tossed several more folders down on the table.

"There are more in every one of these case files. That car bombing in Brazil? Twelve innocent civilians lost their lives as well. All totaled, just in these files, 17 agents of various organizations – CIA, FBI, MI6, SHIELD, Homeland Security, US Military – and 79 bystanders lost their lives."

"Do you know what they all had in common?" she asked. Skye looked at her blankly. Mik tossed the final folder in her hand to Skye, who flipped the cover open to see the Rising Tide logo and a printed copy of a web page.

"Information should be free, right?" said Mik. "Well, because of the information released by Rising Tide on that one page on one single day in 2010, 96 people lost their lives. And that's what the information released on one day caused. I have more if you're interested."

"But…"

"That's YOUR byline on that page, Skye. You don't have to pull the trigger to be a killer." Mik moved to Skye's side and started gathering the folders together. "And nobody is beyond being saved." She turned to face Skye. "So yeah, I'm here to gather information, and I'm also here to try to save my brother. My 'employers' know Grant's my brother, and I have to think that's part of the reason they chose to send me here and not someone else. But the guy in that room – that's not Grant Ward. That's Garrett's puppet, his plaything. Garrett took a broken boy and turned him into a broken man under the guise of 'saving' him."

She stuffed the folders back into her pack. "So ok, you and I might not see eye-to-eye, maybe you think a bullet to the head is a better option – or tossing him into a box and throwing away the key – which is exactly what my parents and brother attempted to do to him when he was 15 – but I like to think that nobody is beyond redemption."

"I—"

Mik put a hand on Skye's shoulder. "I have no beef with you," she said. "Really. I get it. I get why you hate him, I get that he hurt you and people you care about, and I wouldn't blame you if you never forgive him. But just let me do what I need to do." She ran a hand through her hair. "Look, I'll be honest with you. Regardless of whether I get information from him or not, regardless of whether he opens up to me or not, and regardless of whether he is 'saved' or not, he's a traitor – he's Hydra – and he's probably not going to breathe free air for the rest of his life. If that's the case, I at least would like him to spend his life in prison as a human being rather than as the thing Garrett made him into. And if even that isn't possible, I'll be the one to take him out."

She left the room and headed back to the interrogation room.

* * *

Skye sat in her room, her thoughts chaotic and confusing. For the past few weeks, all she'd been able to think about was her anger – anger at Ward mostly, but also anger at herself for not seeing that he was betraying them all along. Now those thoughts were joined by new ones.

She glanced at the laptop on the desk in front of her and called up Google, typing in some of the information she'd seen in the files Mik had shown her. She read about the car bombing in Brazil, saw the images of the people who'd been killed; the shooting in Dubai; the agent's execution in South Africa.

Article after article, news story after news story, and every so often one of those articles would refer to the Rising Tide and their release of information that had led to the bombing or the shooting or the attack, Rising Tide propaganda that had _her_ name on it, that _she_ had written.

_I did this,_ she thought. _I caused this. _She remembered how empowered she'd felt at the time, disclosing the "secrets" the government was keeping from the public; how righteous she'd thought she was being, exposing SHIELD and others for the corrupt organizations she'd believed them to be – and she _had_ believed.

Now she wondered what that made her.


	4. Chapter 4

Sitting in the interrogation room, the four walls around him, Ward looked down at his hands, still chained to the table. Mik, viewing on the display in the observation room, wondered what was going through his head and pondered what she was going to say to him when she went in there again. The door opened, and Coulson came in and sat down beside her.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, both staring at the screen in front of them, at the man on the screen who just sat there staring at his hands. Ward's face was a mask, revealing not a single emotion.

"I don't even know how to feel about him," said Coulson, breaking the silence.

"Nor do I," replied Mik.

"I have a science agent, one of the most brilliant minds in the world, lying in a coma. We don't even know what to expect when he wakes up. Will he be the same? Will he be damaged? If so, is it permanent?"

"I know." Mik's voice was barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," said Coulson. "You didn't do this."

"I should probably get back in there," said Mik, but she remained in her seat staring at the screen.

"Something wrong?" asked Coulson.

"I'm not sure what to say to him. So far, I'm not getting very far. He's not opening up."

"Why not try another tack."

"Such as?"

"Maybe if you open up to him, it will help him open up to you."

* * *

He glanced up as the door opened, watched her sit down across from him, then returned his gaze to the table.

"Glutton for punishment?" he asked.

"Nah." Mik drummed her fingers on the table for a moment, then reached over to touch his hand. He flinched, so she leaned back in the chair again. "Did you ever wonder? About us?"

"Garrett told me what I needed to know."

"And that was what?"

"Last I knew…Sam was in school – Yale Medical School. Maynard's in prison. You're—"

"A librarian in Peoria."

"Yup."

"You never checked for yourself?"

Ward looked up, annoyed. "Why? I asked Garrett, he told me."

"He lied to you."

"I doubt that. Why would he?"

"It's a control thing with guys like him." Ward was silent. "Do you—do you want to know? The truth?" She saw him close his eyes, and she waited. Finally, he shrugged.

"If you want to tell me, I'm not stopping you."

"Sam's dead," she said quietly. "He didn't survive Maynard." She took in a shaky breath. "Maynard didn't survive me."

Ward looked across the table at her, his lips pressed together tightly.

"He beat Sam to death in front of me. Sam was 11, I was 14, you were back at school, I think, when it happened. Mom and dad…they told the cops he fell down the stairs." She ran a hand through her hair. "I was terrified. Maynard got worse after that, like he could get away with anything. Which I guess was true."

"I went to the library, you know how much he hated that stuff, so it was my safe haven." She leaned on her arms on the table. "Did you know that the town library had a huge special collection room? I found some pretty interesting things in there. Lots of crazy occult stuff, old religious texts, really old medical books, weird stuff. But in among all those things was a book of anatomy, and that's where I learned all those obscure pressure points. Did you know that there's a spot on your throat that if you press at exactly the right angle and just the right amount of pressure, you can render someone unconscious in three seconds?"

Grant narrowed his eyes. She could see the wheels turning. "So one day, when Mom and Dad were off on one of their vacations, I used it to knock Maynard out. Then I dragged him down to the basement and – you remember that big workbench down there? I know you do, that's where he used to..." Her voice trailed off.

"Anyway," she continued, shaking her head to clear it. "I know you remember it. I strapped him down, waited for him to regain consciousness. Oh shit, was he MAD!" She met Grant's gaze, knowing her face was now as cold as his. "There's another point on the human body that when you apply pressure exactly right, it paralyzes your victim. They can see and hear everything, feel everything. You can hurt them and they…feel…every…single…moment of it. So I started hurting him. I hurt him for Sam, hurt him bad for Sam. Then I hurt him for you…and for me. I got carried away. By the time I was done, we were both a bloody mess, and he was dead." She ran a hand through her hair and looked away at the wall. "That's how they found us. I was exhausted, sitting on the floor with a bloody knife in my hand, in a pool of Maynard's blood."

"I was babbling about him killing Sam, about him beating us all the time, about what he did to you - what he did to me - what he did to all of us. They – mom and dad – they didn't know what to do, so they had me committed. Didn't want to have Sams's death investigated, I think. So they said I was crazy and locked me away."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Ward asked.

She leaned forward. "Because you need to know the truth. And Garrett didn't give it to you. I want you to know that I'm not going to hide anything from you, I will never lie to you."

"Ok," he replied. "Who do you work for?"

"Stark Industries." It was the truth; she did work for Stark, and she wasn't going to tell him that Fury was still alive. She worked for Stark; Fury contacted her through Tony when he called her in. "Tony Stark found me in the institution when I was 15, I hadn't been there maybe 8 months? I was smart, I was a great hacker." She chuckled. "I hacked his JARVIS system one time too many from the administrative office computer; kinda knocked Iron Man outta the sky, so he came looking for me. He told me I didn't belong there, and he checked me out, brought me to work for him. I had some skills he thought would be beneficial to SHIELD, so he brought me to Fury, and Fury brought me to Romanoff."

"Romanoff?" Ward said doubtfully.

"Romanoff turned me into the Shadow."

"So you do work for SHIELD."

"No. I'm an independent contractor. I work for Stark, I have a contract with SHIELD."

Ward shook his head, then looked up at her questioningly. "This is the truth?"

Mik nodded. "I told you. I won't lie to you. I know you probably don't trust anyone but Garrett, but you have my word. I will not lie to you."

"Garrett saved me."

"From what?"

"Prison."

"You were in juvie."

"Maynard was going to have me tried as an adult."

"That's not true. There were people fighting for you."

"Nobody ever fought FOR me."

"I did. That's why you got probation and sent back to school."

"But Garrett said—"

"I know what Garrett said. It wasn't true."

Grant's eyes narrowed. She knew he was doubting her.

"I can show you the paperwork, Grant. You were given three years' probation, a no contact order, and the stipulation that you finish school. That's why you went back to military school after juvie."

The look on his face caught her off-guard. He looked confused. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Military school," he replied.

She shook her head; now she was confused. "Yes…that's why you were taken from juvie and sent back."

"I—" The look of confusion on his brow deepened.

She raised her brows at him. "You…what?" she prompted.

"Never went back to military school?" It was almost a question and was barely audible.

"Your file says you did. Your school transcripts are in there. The no contact order. The probation order." He met her eyes then, and she wasn't sure what she saw there – accusation? Did he think she was lying to him. "I told you I won't lie to you, Grant. Your file says you went back to school, you graduated with honors, there are progress reports in there, a copy of your diploma." She cocked her head. "In all the years you worked for SHIELD, didn't you ever look at your own file?"

"Why would I?"

"I don't know…curiosity?"

Grant shrugged and shook his head.

"It's in there," Mik said. "Our whole family history-"

"I know it is. I mean, Coulson knew the family history, Maria Hill, Fury, they were aware."

"I know they were." Mik leaned forward and touched his hand again. This time he just stared down at their hands, a look of confusion on his face. "But did you ever think to ask them WHAT it was they were aware of?" She let go of his hand and leaned back in her chair again. "Why would you? Why would you have any reason to doubt what your SO was telling you?"

Mik shoved her chair back and stood; she was angry now. "This is a mess," she said and left the room, leaving the door open behind her. "Take him back to his cell," she said to the guard outside the door.

"Ma'am?" the guard asked.

"Did I stutter?!" anger flashed in her eyes and she brought her face close to the guard's. "I said take him back to his cell; I'm done for today."


	5. Chapter 5

She went down the hall to the briefing room, feeling the anger building up inside her. She swept everything off a countertop beside her with fury, looking up to see the guard escorting Grant past the room. Their eyes met and she just shook her head and turned away from him, not wanting him to see her losing her cool.

"Mik," said a voice behind her. She turned to see May, a concerned look on her face.

"Not now, May."

"Are you—"

Mik grabbed her bag and shoved her way past May. "I said not now!"

In her room, she threw the bag on her bed and sat beside it for a while with her eyes closed. So many thoughts and she was having trouble sorting through them all. Grant had been let down in so many ways and by so many people.

When she'd arrived, she thought this would be a cut and dry interrogation. He was HYDRA, her job was to find out what he knew; but now…now the information she was getting, she didn't know WHO her brother was. She wondered if he even knew himself.

If he wasn't at school, she thought, where the hell was he?

She reached into her bag and pulled out a sat phone, pressing a few buttons.

"Mikki!" said the voice that answered. "How are you?!"

"Not so good tonight, I'm afraid," she replied. "Can you lend me an ear?"

"I can do better. Pepper's out tonight on one of her…things, you know—she loves those fundraising gala things. I'll drop by for a visit."

"Tony, I'm—"

"I know where you are; I'll be there in a bit." He hung up the phone. Mik found a six-pack of Sam Adams in the rec room fridge and carried it with her down to Coulson's office, knocking on the door.

"It's open!" called Coulson, so she entered.

"I'm having company," she said, standing in the doorway.

"Um—" Coulson assessed her and the six-pack in her hand. A SHIELD operative appeared in the doorway behind her. She turned her head slightly to the side and shifted her eyes toward him.

"Sir," he said. "We've got a bogey coming in." Mik shifted her eyes back to Coulson.

"Um—" Coulson raised his brows at Mik, and she nodded. "Stand down," Coulson said to the operative.

"Sir, it's coming pretty fast."

"I said stand down, soldier."

"Yes, sir," replied the operative and left.

"Thanks," Mik said and left the room. She headed down the hallway and out the door, gazing up at the stars as she headed for the jogging track, settling on a bench nearby to wait.

* * *

Phil sat at his desk, thumbing through Ward's file. May had come to him a little while ago, telling him something was up with Mik. Together, they'd gone down to the observation room and reviewed the tape from her interrogation session, working their way backwards.

Now he pulled some pages out of Ward's file – diploma from Eton Hill Military School. High marks in hand/eye coordination, tactical skills, exemplary moral character. Achievement awards in archery and marksmanship and several others. Progress reports from each year he'd spent there. If he wasn't at Eton Hill, where the hell had he been?

Phil grabbed his phone and dialed, turning his chair to look out the window as Tony Stark landed beside the bench on which Mik was sitting.

"Maria!" he said into the phone. "Listen, you vetted Ward, right? Did you call his school at the time?"

* * *

"Hey kiddo," said Tony as his suit peeled off. He held out a tray. "Pepper sent cookies – your favorite." He sat on the bench beside her and she handed him a beer. He put an arm around her shoulder and half hugged her. "Rough night?"

She filled him in on the session with her brother. "You know," she said. "You know I appreciate what you've done for me, right?"

"Of course!" She squeezed her shoulder again and took a pull on his Sam Adams.

"I just—I just want to make sure you know how much I do appreciate it." She shook her head. "I don't know if I even want to ask Grant where he was between juvie and the SHIELD Academy."

"You know you have to," Tony replied.

"I know. Doesn't mean I want to." She took a bite into one of Pepper's oatmeal raisin cookies. "Do you think they knew? That his records were messed with?"

"Who? SHIELD?"

Mik nodded.

"I don't know," said Tony. "I mean, SHIELD's done some pretty shady things through the years, but—I don't know. Doesn't seem like the sort of thing they'd do. Not with an unknown, incoming cadet."


End file.
